The 113 profiled libraries (four omitted) are mostly in the lower half of funding, with two-thirds spending between $12 and $30.99. Circulation also clusters somewhat low, with only 13% circulating at least 10 items per capita (compared to 38% overall) and 30% circulating 6 to 7.99. Expenditures do correlate with circulation—and that’s also true on the budget side, except that the single library spending $73 or more per capita has lower circulation per capita than most of those spending $53 to $72.99. No Kentucky library falls into the top bracket for patron visits per capita, and more than half have less than four (compared to 35% nationally); in this case, the budget table shows rising median visits per capita in every bracket.

Program attendance is just a little on the low side (mostly because only one library—not one of the better-funded ones—has 1.1 or more attendance per capita); PC use is distinctly low, with only 28% of libraries having at least 1.3 uses per capita (compared to 43% overall).

Libraries by legal service area

LSA

Count

%

Outliers

1,650-2,249

1

0.9%

4,000-5,299

1

0.9%

1

5,300-6,799

2

1.8%

6,800-8,699

7

6.2%

8,700-11,099

6

5.3%

1

11,100-14,099

18

15.9%

14,100-18,499

19

16.8%

18,500-24,999

15

13.2%

1

25,000-34,499

13

11.5%

1

34,500-53,999

15

13.3%

54,000-104,999

11

9.7%

105,000-4.1 mill.

5

4.4%

Circulation per Capita and Spending per Capita

Circulation per capita in Kentucky libraries correlates strongly (0.64) with spending per capita.